The Garter
Jean François de Troy
1724 · Oil on canvas · European Paintings
A man offers to help a woman reattach her garter, a common conceit in erotic painting and literature in eighteenth-century France. Her hand firmly rejects his advance, but the indecorous decision to reveal her leg in his presence suggests a ruse—perhaps inspired by the contents of the book she has discarded next to an already disrobed bronze statuette. The clock resembles the latest models by the famed furniture maker André Charles Boulle and includes a figure of Saturn, or Father Time, whose scythe has been stolen by Cupid.
- Artist
- Jean François de Troy
- Date
- 1724
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Department
- European Paintings
- Credit line
- Bequest of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 2019
